Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism, this blog contains random musings of a journalist, father, husband, son, friend, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and occasionally-ranting rabbi, taken from Shabbat-O-Grams, columns, speeches, letters, sermons and thin air. "On One Foot," the column, appears regularly in the New York Jewish Week, as well as a blog for the "Times of Israel."

Thursday, September 11, 2014

According to American law,
there is no legal obligation to rescue a person in danger. Jewish law, however,
provides a different answer. Passivity does not become us.Resonsibility does.
Leviticus 19:16 states it clearly, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your
neighbor.”It evokes the scene where
Cain claims to have no idea where Abel is (he just killed him) and God says,
“The blood of your brother is crying from the earth.”

Elie
Wiesel once claimed to be able to condense the entire ethical teaching of
the Bible into that one sentence, “Thou shalt not stand idly by.” Indeed, it’s been his life’s work. And it applies equally to Jews and non
Jews. Wiesel, speaking at the Darfur
Emergency Summit in July 2004, interpreted
the ancient verse to highlight its contemporary global implications:

"Lo ta'amod al dam
re'echa" is a Biblical commandment. "Thou shall not stand idly by the
shedding of the blood of thy fellow man." The word is
not "achi'cha," thy Jewish brother,
but "re'echa," thy fellow human being, be he or she Jewish
or not. All are entitled to live with dignity and hope. All are entitled to
live without fear and pain.

An interesting
nuance, from Rabbi Dorothy Richman: Lo ta'amod al dam re'echa literally
means, "Do not stand on your neighbor's blood." Normally, the
verb "to stand" is associated with courage and activism: we value
"standing up" for human rights or "standing" against
oppression. Yet the language of our verse is "standing on" – being
close to the action, yet ineffectual, perhaps even causing harm. Perhaps the
phrase lo ta'amodbrings a subtle warning against causing
well-intentioned injurywithin the imperative to respond. The
potential for well-meaning, misguided interventions is present in seemingly
innocent interactions.

The verse also applies in
other areas. For example: If you hear
informers plotting to harm someone, you’re obligated to inform the intended
victim. If you can somehow stop the perpetrator from acting, but you do not,
you have broken the law, “Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.”
–Shulkhan
Arukh Hoshen Mishpat 426:1